Son

by Sonnekus, Neil

  On Luck

  * * *

  Kay kept on sleeping until nine o’clock, by which time I wasn’t going to get any sleep, or sex, unless I phoned the old man off, so I made us an English breakfast. She loved that and looked much fresher and even wanted to get a little lovey-dovey as I started getting ready to leave for the old man’s.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I forgot.”

  “That’s all right,” I lied. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “I’ve got a study group,” she play-moaned.

  “Some other time.”

  “Did you make your ex-wife breakfast too?”

  “I’d prefer not to talk about her.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “Shall we have some coffee?”

  “Good idea,” the old man said, standing at the wash line and ironing some hanging rags with his large brown hands, as if he were still out in the desert.

  I was hanging on one arm of the silver pole’s crossbar and he asked me how many pull-ups I could do and I almost managed ten.

  “Very good,” he said. “I used to be able to do a hundred in college.”

  “Then came the war.”

  “Ja. But I was very lucky.”

  “How come?” I said for about the three-hundred-thousandth time, returning to terra firma.

  “Well, out in the desert there was this thick line that ran through our camp, so I cut a piece out of it so that I could make a washing line, like this. Soon after I hear it’s the communication line to the front and someone’s cut it and there’s going to be hell to pay. So I quickly get rid of it, bury it.”

  “What would have happened if they’d discovered it was you?” I said, propagating us towards the apron, the stoep and the kitchen.

  “They would have shot me on the spot for treason!” he laughed, inviting me to share in his mischief, almond-coloured eyes sparkling as he poured the coffee.

  “Let’s go outside,” I said.

  So we took our coffee and Lemon Creams out into the autumn light, sat down and I asked him how his week had been. His sister from Empangeni had called to tell him what to eat and there was this man from the church who was worried about the old man’s soul, but he had told “the bastard” that he had a personal relationship with the Old Man and read the Good Book every day, and had I read the latest Reader’s Digest?

  “No.”

  A family had been stuck in a car on a muddy dirt road and, unbeknownst to them, a truck was hurtling towards them at full speed. It was night and its brakes had failed. But they prayed and tried one more time and drove out of that mud and took a turn-off just before the truck passed them. They would have been stone dead.

  “Maybe they were just lucky. What happened to the truck?”

  “Talking about trucks, the Stukas used to come flying over us and every time we’d have to jump off the back of those trucks and lie on the side of the road. But after a while I notice that the gaps between the rounds are so big that you can predict exactly where the next bullet will hit.”

  “So?”

  “I’m getting tired of jumping in and out of the trucks the whole time. So after a while I just stay on the truck and work out when I have to jump off, if at all, and when not.”

  “What did the others say?”

  “They thought I was mad,” he said, laughing.

  “Wow.”

  “But do you know what?”

  “No, Dad. What?”

  He reiterated that he must be the luckiest guy in the world.

  “Why is that?” I asked, deciding that Kay was definitely playing some sort of game.

  “Because I only fired five shots in the war, and that was to test my sights.”

  “And then?”

  “We were captured at Tobruk and had to smash those beautiful .303s.”

  Septimana Irritabilis

  * * *

  That night I couldn’t sleep, as usual, telling myself that I finally would, but didn’t.

  The next morning Butch and I went for a dazed late walk and I made the further mistake of asking the Doberman handler with the camo pants and mean black eyes how he was after all these months of walk-by greetings. Ask a stranger how they are and within five minutes they will tell you most of what you need to know about them, even with their silences, but this one wasn’t that way inclined. Within seconds he was trying to convince me that the whole world was geared towards controlling our minds. The military-industrial complex was poised for takeover, the media wasn’t (weren’t you, idiot, media is plural) reporting on it because they was (were!) all in cahoots, and at least he wasn’t that far gone to see that I didn’t believe a word he was saying.

  “It’s all in the book I’m writing,” he said by way of authenticating it.

  “Well, I’d like to read it when it comes out,” I lied.

  “It should be done in about two months’ time.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  “What do you do?” he ventured.

  “I work in the media.”

  He gave a low, guttural murmur that went for an ironic chuckle, although it felt more like he was preparing to rip my throat out, or order his two prize animals to do so, and said maybe I’d like to review his book.

  “But I’m part of the new military-media complex?”

  “Ja, but there are still pockets of sanity,” he replied, his eyes betraying that last word.

  I was sick of the whole anti-media thing. People bitched about politicians and the papers, but if it wasn’t for the latter they wouldn’t know what the former were up to, and they were mostly up to no good. Christ, if the country wasn’t as oppressive and intellectually bankrupt enough as it was, you still had the Dobermen of this world to add to that claustrophobia in as open and supposedly free a space as this park. He may well have been right about the military-industrial complex, but if he was the alternative then I’d stick with the demons I knew.

  “I’ll see you,” I said and started walking away, taking in deep breaths of fresh air, both real and metaphorical.

  “Maybe we can have a cup of coffee sometime,” he called after me.

  “Sure,” I retorted.

  In your fucking dreams, sunshine.

  That night I slept a little, walked Butch again, wrote nothing and went to work. Kay called and thanked me that she could sleep over and that I was so understanding and promised that she would make up for it in a big way that Saturday. I didn’t say I’d believe that when I saw it, but I thought it and said let’s see how things go.

  I still couldn’t sleep, so I finally put on the seventh quartet, the first of three commissioned by ambassador Andrey Razumovsky. It starts with a simple walk-along tune, the kind that might ease its way out of you as you take a brisk stroll. But it’s in the lower registers, starting off with a slightly melancholic cello. Soon it takes a darker hue, a more dangerous edge. (There is always that potential for danger and excitement in Beethoven’s work.) Then back to the tune with all the improvisatory powers at its creator’s command.

  The second movement is supposed to be much slower, more stately. But soon the maestro tires of such stasis and the piece climbs out of its complacency into a kind of suspended excitement.

  Here comes the third now, the slower movement, all exquisite, rainy, winter’s-day melancholy, art defeating death, even lending Mr Rossini a few notes for his much later Barber of Seville overture. (Beethoven likes to go very slow and long when he’s supposed to just go slow and longish; the same applies to fast and shortish.) The piece goes on, never boring, always creating a what’s-next expectation, though always logical in its argument, always innovative in its execution – note the almost jazz-like plucking of the cello – and who says that expectation isn’t a bit of a tease? Who says it isn’t erotic? Why not make deepest love to that music, I thought. Maybe such musical genius could awaken in the unconscious mind a sense of beauty, even if applied towards the political economy.

  There is no break between the third and last mo
vement; they are one. This is also not “allowed”, but who’s complaining? If anyone is, Beethoven certainly isn’t losing any sleep about it. He’s too busy working out the next argument. We are now supposed to be in an allegro, I think, but it isn’t very fast, and it seems to have endless endings, like the film version of Lord of the Rings. There is also a Russian theme, though I’m too much of an ignoramus to hear it. But what is he doing? Is he solving a problem or playing a joke on us, or both? Here’s another ending, but no, he has more to say. It’s like this never-ending night. Off he goes again, building to an ultra-slow moment before the final push and Butch starts barking at the screeching hadedahs at first light.

  On Thursday night after deadline and calling the old man, who thanked me so much for calling, I went home like a good boy and did what many unwatched men do: I watched porn for too long, followed by the functional release that comes with it.

  On Friday morning I woke up too early, took Butch for a dozy but bracing walk, saw and reviewed an okay film, got drunk at my usual watering hole and kept to within the drink-drive limit afterwards. Passed out. The next morning I did some shopping, went over to Jay and Veron’s after lunch, watched a boring game of soccer and turned down the offer of supper.

  “Why? Have you got a skrop?” Jay asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, whatever you do, use a condom.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t drink beer through latex.”

  “Very funny, dickhead.”

  Kay duly arrived at my mansion and got Butch’s spine undulating like a child twirling a rope, but she had even darker rings under her eyes, regardless of the make-up she had plastered over them and her blemishes. She seemed on edge; it looked like she had lost more weight, too.

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “Ja,” she said, distracted.

  I went to the kitchen, got us the usual Grouse and when I got back she was still standing, looking at my lithos with her back to me.

  “What makes you feel alive, Len?”

  “Writing, Beethoven, sex, though not necessarily in that order.”

  “Do you want a striptease, Mr Sub Man?”

  “Hell no,” I said, an irony she at least understood.

  She slowly took off her shirt and dropped it.

  “Undo my bra.”

  So I went over and did so.

  “Go and sit down.”

  I did as ordered, seeing Butch outside cocking his head sideways and looking as dumb as my denim-constrained IMP.

  Now she slowly pulled down her trouser zip.

  “God, I love that sound,” I said, wondering whether other atheists also used His name in vain when it came to sex.

  “So do I,” she said, and we both laughed.

  Now she kicked her slightly raised shoes away.

  “What do you think of my arse?” she said, reading my thoughts.

  “I think it’s a work of art,” I said. “Enigmatic, but artistic nevertheless.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, judging by its shape you’re a very sensual person. But you don’t really take that sensuality all the way with me.”

  “Some people think it’s fat. Others, of course, think it’s too, like –”

  “Thin?”

  “Flat.”

  She turned to face me, standing there in her white panties, walking towards me, putting her hands on my knees, sinking to hers. As aroused as I was, I couldn’t help suspecting she was going through some kind of routine here.

  “Let’s start with the shoes,” she said.

  “You know, I’ve always believed in working one’s way up from the bottom.”

  “Good,” she said, removing my shoes and socks. “Now let’s get rid of these pesky jeans.”

  She started busying herself with my buckle, then the button of my trousers, the zip, carefully.

  “Lift yourself up,” she said.

  I lifted my arse and she pulled my pants away, leaving me in my bulging boxers.

  “And again,” she said.

  Who was I to argue? I lifted myself, she pulled off my boxers and couldn’t have seen too pleasant a view.

  “That’s good,” she said, staring at my very interested IMP.

  “What would you like to do now?” she said.

  “Well, I thought we could discuss Hegel’s theory of history.”

  “Tell me about it?”

  “Not now, darling,” I joked rather desperately. “I have a headache.”

  “But then you cannot possibly want sex.”

  “The funny thing is,” I replied, “it’s the kind of headache that’s cured by sex.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really!”

  “Okay. But I first want a jay.”

  “Fine! Let’s have a jay!”

  “But I’ve run out.”

  “Well then let’s not have a jay!”

  “I know where we could get some more.”

  “I’m sure it can wait,” I said.

  “No,” she decided. “I don’t think it can.”

  And with that she got up and sexily started getting dressed, an act that advertisers avoided because it started with nudity instead of leading to it. Is this some kind of game, I wondered out aloud.

  “No. Why would I do that?” she said almost impatiently. “I just feel like a jay. It’ll take us half an hour. Are you coming?”

  The last thing I felt like doing was going out, but by then it could be safe to say I was compromised and, anyway, I suffered from that thing most writers do, even failed ones: I knew if I went along I’d see something new and it could always be used as material. And I was very awake.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m coming,” knowing that was the end of sex for the night, yet again.

  On Captivity

  * * *

  Driving to Lyttelton, I listened to the E minor, or eighth, which is an altogether different proposition to its predecessor. It starts off with a clear, sunny statement, but is then followed by an ultra-slow, church-like adagio that seems to go on forever. It reminded me of the restlessness I felt as a child while the minister droned on endlessly and the old man juddered and clicked away. Now I couldn’t get enough of it, savouring it both in time and out of it, knowing there were further delights, if only musical, to be had.

  The allegro doesn’t disappoint, conjuring up the image of a foal finding its feet, bursting with its own life, testing its legs, running and jumping for the sheer joy of it. The presto is full of Russian – as well as Italian, to my mind – exuberance. It is a virtuoso piece for the lead violinist to fly upon and the other three to support. A much sweeter-seeming quartet than the former, but it plunges more depths. It is, as my late mother would have said, too beautiful for words.

  The old man was standing at the gates and looked the way I felt: not happy about something. When we got to the kitchen I saw there was a lemon pie, which looked like it had been bought at a home industries shop, on the table.

  “I see you got us a lemon pie for a change, Dad.”

  “No, I didn’t,” he said, agitated. “He gave it to me,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the neighbour’s.

  “He” was Uncle Vern, who had moved in next door with his wife and two sons when I was about, hell, very young and they were almost a handsome little family – almost because Uncle Vern was not exactly an oil painting. But he had had the prettiest Christian wife you ever did see. She used to wear such soft summer dresses and had such pink full cheeks and lips that I used to like her in ways that distantly puzzled me. The problem was that Uncle Vern had been (and still was) an atheist and Aunty Carrie wasn’t. She was a Baptist or something and one fine day Ma told me that Carrie and the boys had moved out. Why, I wondered out aloud. The thing is that Aunty Carrie had met another nice Christian man and she and Uncle Vern were going to get divorced. I was quietly outraged. How could this happen in our suburb, our street, right next to us, in fact? Weren’t there rules against such
things? And would I ever see Aunty Carrie again?

  Vernon Brown must have been pretty shocked too, because he never moved out of that house and he never got married again. The years would go by and Uncle Vern would always wear his check short-sleeve shirts, his baggy green shorts, long beige socks and ubiquitous Hush Puppies. In winter he would add a khaki pullover to his wardrobe and just get whiter and balder. He also had various back ops and was finally boarded for health reasons and paid a packet to not work for anyone else in the nuclear industry. He never went to see the rest of the world, never took up his hobby of sailing again, and always had a dry whistle as he pottered about a garden big enough for three families too. But then he was the one who was always helping the old man with an errand here, a meal there or just – God in his great absence help him – listening to him.

  “That’s nice of him.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I didn’t ask for it.”

  “But –”

  “That bladdy man irritates me! The other day he takes me to the hairdresser –”

  “– that’s also quite nice of him.”

  “– but the bladdy bastard never cleans my neck properly. Look here!”

  The old man showed me how long the silver strands were still in his neck, and he had a point, even though we’d had endless headbutts about hairlines as fashions had changed over the decades.

  “So why don’t you tell him to clean it?”

  “Agh!” he fumed, cornered and as coiled as a pressured spring.

  “Let’s have some coffee and pie,” I said.

  “Good idea,” he said for about the two-hundred-thousandth time and gradually calmed down as we went through the speeches and he punctured two holes in a new condensed milk tin and blew that thick, sticky milk into his coloured water. Then he did the same for my cup of pitch, which would kill me, and took a deep suck of the sweet whiteness.